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Blogspace vs. NPR
jonkl writes "National Public Radio's linking policy at npr.org has caused a fuss within the blog community that's hot and getting hotter. The policy's simply stated in two sentences: 'Linking to or framing of any material on this site without the prior written consent of NPR is prohibited. If you would like to link to NPR from your Web site, please fill out the link permission request form.' This is buried, of course, in a page linked to the site's footer, but somebody noticed and mentioned it to Howard Rheingold, who passed it on to Cory Doctorow of boingboing.net. Cory wrote scathing commentary, calling the policy 'brutally stupid,' even 'fatally stupid.' The outrage is spreading; this has to be a rough day for the NPR ombudsman who's deluged with email by now... ~24 hours after Cory's report." Reminds of the KPMG policy.
Of course, that'd just encourage browser authors to modify web browsers to be able to return arbitrary referrer information. Duh. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this hasn't been done in some browser already.
These are the same people who lobbied congress with Clear Channel when the FCC was going to open up short range radio channels for public use. (Schools, community centers, public groups would be able to transmit low power FM frequencies, so your town city or whatever could put up it's own public radio station.)
NPR didn't speak up when the FCC was holding hearings asking for comments and conducting studies, they waited until after the FCC had made up it's mind to grant the frequencies, and then cried wolf, saying that they'd interfer with NPR's. The FCC said too little too late, and pointed to studies that were conducted showing contrary to NPR's unbased claim. So NPR lobbied congress and got them to stop the FCC.
NPR has always been a control freak. There's nothing new about that.
...if it weren't for someone (I'm assuming) breaking the linking policy, I wouldn't have been able to find out about their wonderful fleece pullover. Think of all the money NPR could be losing! Seriously, though...if valid, how far could this extend? If I need to ask their permission to link to them, would I also need to ask their permission to tell other people about the site?
NPR sucks rubber donkey dong, no one should link to them. They are tools of the global socialist goons. Want to link to good radio, radio that will broadcast the uncensored truth, link to some of the great patriot radio out there, like american freedom network or genesis communications network instead. NPR is for professional students who fawn over their marxist professors.
My opinion of course, but commercial network radio that pushes republican or democratic liars, like rush or larry king-just a pack of lies mostly. NPR-ultra socialist, just as skewed a "news" service as the fatcat corporate radio, they just play make believe they are cool.
Support patriot radio and the free broadcasters, the indies and micro broadcasters!
Google lists 20600 pages that link to npr.org. Imagine having to approve all those requests? Argh!
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
They linked to my site, and it resulted in 16 gigs of overage for the month at $12/gig. I didn't have that, and so my site got shut down for two and a half months. By then, I lost most of my regular visitors and it took a year to get about as many back.
Had they asked before linking, I would have said no. It was supposed to be a small, intelligent discussion forum for those of us who choose not to work high-wage jobs.
Actually, maybe we could convince some of the search engines -- Google would be especially nice -- to simply de-list anyone with such terms, along with a friendly notice about why.
I think it'd put a stop to things like this rather quickly.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Disclaimer: I DON'T have cable, so I cannot comment thereon. The commercial broadcast (and sadly, most of the print) media I see and hear outside public radio and TV are ANYTHING but diverse, friends. With media outlets being sucked into fewer and fewer hands, and news departments becoming seen as profit centers and advertising venues rather than independent journalistic operations, diversity of news is vanishing. This phenomenon is real and well-documented. If anything, we need public broadcasting MORE rather than LESS as time goes on. Mind you, NPR ain't perfect either, but it DOES fill a gap...
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
they have *no* ads they are a fucking nonprofit!
You do of course realize that these two things are not mutually exclusive. Not-for-profit does no mean no advertising. Not-for-profit only means that the organization is not in the business of making money. Any excess money that a regular company may consider profit is considered surplus by a not-for-profit and must be put back into the business.
Take for example PBS (you know - it's where you watch Sesame Street when you aren't watching Jerry Springer). They have several sponsors which is a fancy way of saying advertisers. I have even seen the occasional commercial between shows.
Even better: ASK them for permission. If everybody links to their site and asks them for permission to do so, they're going to get REAL tired of it real fast. Just like Jesus, when he suggested that the Palestinians carry their master's packs for two leagues instead of just one. Imagine the poor Roman soldier, begging the Palestinian to give him back his pack: "No, no, it's alright, I'm not tired--here, I'll just carry it a few more steps. Nevermind that I'm a tired old woman, older than your mother, God bless her soul. I'll be fine, you just rest in the shade."
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist